Winter is coming, and that means cold weather that drastically changes your landscape when it comes to pest problems. While some types of pests disappear for the winter months, others that don’t hibernate during the winter season will often seek refuge from the cold in the warmth and comfort of your home. That means you need to focus and keep up with your pest control measures or else you might see a sharp increase in bug intrusions.

Here are four tasks to take care of in autumn in order to avoid the frustration of a serious winter pest problem.

Treat For Grubs

Grubs are not typically active during winter, but they often spend the winter season feasting on your lawn’s roots and growing. By spring, they have matured into adult insects that dig their way out of the ground and buzz around your property. As adults, beetles lay more eggs that create the next generation of grubs that cause further damage to your lawn. The best thing to do is put a stop to the cycle by treating your lawn for insects before it goes dormant for the winter.

Most home improvement stores will carry some form of a product that will eliminate grubs by either stopping their growth cycle or by eliminating them while they’re still in the ground. However, the best and most effective way to make sure your lawn is properly treated is with a comprehensive pest plan from an experienced pest control team.

Renew Your Pest Barrier

Pest barriers are a vital tool for keeping bugs out of your home. A pest barrier is a line of preventive materials and substances that are placed around your home to stop any bugs that might crawl through it to reach your home itself. There are two primary kinds of pest barriers—liquid products and granule-based products—but both typically perform the same function. Likewise, both will eventually wear off, resulting in your protective layer diminishing.

The fall is a great time to renew your pest barrier by re-applying barrier products to the perimeter of your home. A professional pest barrier treatment will make a tremendous difference when it comes to keeping bugs at bay, particularly during winter months when non-dormant species will often look for shelter from the cold virtually anywhere.

Move Wood Piles & Other Pest-Sheltering Features

Bugs are constantly looking for shelter to protect themselves from both other predators and from other problems like precipitation, frost, and more. They often seek shelter in places you might not expect, such as woodpiles, mulch pits, under trash cans, and around bags of soil or other gardening materials. If these features are located up against the wall of your home, they can provide an easy and safe way for pests to crawl into your home in search of food. Because these features often provide a bridge over any pest barriers you may have applied, they make it easy for pests to get in without any risk to their health. Therefore, the fall is an ideal time to move these features away from your home walls. We also recommend trimming away any plants or bushes that might be up against your exterior walls to take away any easy access points.

Clean Up Leaves & Debris

One of the most beautiful parts of fall is that the leaves on our trees all change color as they die off and fall to the ground. However, leaves falling to the ground creates a different problem: they provide a great source of shelter for a wide variety of bugs and pests. Spiders, ticks, roaches, and all sorts of other pests all take cover under leaf piles because they provide protection from the prying eyes of predators like birds and reptiles.

While it might be annoying to have to continually clean up your yard week after week, we strongly recommend raking up the leaves and debris that litter your property during this period. This will not only severely cut back on your pest population, but continuous cleaning will make the job easier. Allowing a tree-heavy property to go for even a couple of weeks without raking can make cleaning up one gigantic and nearly impossible chore. This will also help you prevent damage to your lawn that can come from a blanket of leaves shielding your grass from getting the sunlight it needs during this crucial time of the year.

Protect your property this winter with high-quality, effective local pest control from the team at Purple Care! (817) 880-6052 today.